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Good Times And Maude


Good Times Is Not A Spin Off Of Maude. click the link

http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2009/05/12/tv-legends-reveale d-5/

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This is nitpicking. Of course it's a spin-off: The character Florida started on Maude and later got her own show. Doesn't matter if Good Times was written beforehand or not -- it became a spin-off when Florida Evans jumped ship.

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If Norman Lear had complete control over the show it would of been more of a spin off, but Eric Monte and Micheal Evans was really in charge. There is little to no relation to Maude and Good Times being a spin off because:

1. Good Times took place in Chicago. Maude took place in Tuckaho, NY. No reference of them moving there in 1974.

2. James was Henry Evans on Maude, and I believe was a firefighter.

There was also little reference to Florida cleaning house on Good Times, and you would think how can someone forget working for Maude Findlay?

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No one ever said a spin-off couldn't be altered during the course of its development. Doesn't make it any less of a spin off. "THe ANdy Griffith SHow" was a spin off of "The Danny Thomas Show," even if Barney and Aunt Bee hadn't been invented yet. "Maude" was a spin off of All in the Family, even though Lear changed Maude's backstory considerably (on AITF, Maude was a three-time widow; on "Maude," she was a divorcee, etc.)

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A spin off can be altered, but there was reference on AITF of Maude being a widow once.

I mean let's get real, how naive did they think people were. I would of understood it more if they had The Evans family live in Harlem or The Bronx it would of made more sense to be a spin off. The reason it was probably set in Chicago was because the real creator of the show was from those projects in Chicago.

The shows will go down in TV history as spin offs, just seem like it should of been more reference.

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On AITH, Maude was a three-time widow. Archie made a joke about how he saw all three of her husbands laid out at the funeral home with big smiles on their faces.

On Maude, all her marriages ended in divorce.

It's not that the creators thought people were naive or stupid. Just the opposite -- they assumed we were smart enough to understand that a series needs to be more fully developed when it goes out on its own, and that it will change along the way. No big deal.

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On AITH, Maude was a three-time widow. Archie made a joke about how he saw all three of her husbands laid out at the funeral home with big smiles on their faces.

On Maude, all her marriages ended in divorce.


Just getting around to reading the "Maude" threads as I've been watching a lot of episodes recently on youtube, so sorry for the delayed response.

For the record:

On Maude's first appearance on AITH, Maude says:

"Oh, Edith, Edith." then, looking Archie in the eye: "I'd kill for that girl."

Archie: Gee, Maude, ya already buried two husbands. Ain't that enough killing for ya?

On the series "Maude", Maude is once widowed and twice divorced.

Though at times Carol is mentioned as her daughter from her second husband, and in others from her first.

Inconsistencies abound!




Hair today. Goon tomorrow.

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I suppose that tehnically GOOD TIMES fits the criteria for a spin-off but it's not a spin-off in the traditional sense. The only connection between GOOD TIMES and MAUDE is the character of Floria Evans, who seemed to exist in two realities --

MAUDE
Floria was married to Henry, who was a NYC fireman who made good money and didn't want her to work as a maid of all things. She had mentioned having children, but how many of them nor their names were ever menitoned.

GOOD TIMES
Florida is married to James, who is chronically out-of-work. It is firmly established that the Evans family has always lived in Chicago -- James was never a NYC fireman and Floria was never a maid.

I've only seen the first season of MAUDE, so I have no idea how they wrote Floria off the show. Did the writers actually set up the premise for GOOD TIMES or was her departure even shown?

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GOOD TIMES
Florida is married to James, who is chronically out-of-work. It is firmly established that the Evans family has always lived in Chicago -- James was never a NYC fireman and Floria was never a maid.

Uh, yes she was. Florida did mention that she was a maid "and the best DAMN maid there was!" in the episode "The Check-up" when she was looking for work.

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James was rarely out of work. He just had terrible low paying jobs.

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There was an episode midway through season 2,where Florida bid farewell to the Findlay Home and quit her housekeeping position(it ended with her and Maude crying over eachother's shoulders).
That was the last we ever saw of her on Maude.

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....and the networks had MUCH more license to do stuff like this back then bc there were only 3 of them. It would be next to impossible to successfully pull this off today. Market is MUCH more competitive....less 'room'.

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Wrong. Even the text in the link says Good Times wasn't "originally" a spin-off of Maude, which implies that it eventually turned into a spin-off. A spin-off is simply defined as a tv show that uses the people or places of another show to launch it. A degree of story tweaking and change in creative control is inevitable but doesn't change the fact that it was a spin-off of Maude.

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[deleted]

When producers decided to feature the Florida Evans in her own show they applied retroactive changes to her history. Her husband Henry became James, there is no mention of Maude and the couple lived in Chicago.

I like to refer to Florida Evans by her full name to cut down on confusion that can happen when someone is named after a state.

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would have been more believable if she was commuting in from NY housing projects...but whatever

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[deleted]

Actually, Good Times was the result of a CHARACTER spin-off. Eric Monte, Cooley High, had written a treatment for a sit-com called, The Black Family. He and Michael Evans, the 1st Lionel, had shopped the concept around Hollywood. After Esther Rolle's scene stealing performances on Maude Norman Lear incorporated the Monte/Evans concept to the Florida character hence giving birth to Good Times!

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It's about the same guidelines as the shows Mr.Dugan and Hanging In that followed Maude that used the same characters that appeared in the last episode...

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